Analyses of God beliefs, atheism, religion, faith, miracles, evidence for religious claims, evil and God, arguments for and against God, atheism, agnosticism, the role of religion in society, and related issues.

31 comments:

One of the most frustrating and maddening things about Religionists of all stripes is the way in which our single greatest strength, our inherent ability to understand, our inherent need to know and learn, and our ability to rationally discover truth about the Universe has been inverted and turned into the alleged source of our fallen and debased human nature. Our Original Sin is that we are rational beings who desire to understand. In its place, they foist this Faith in the unknown, unknowable supra-entity as the solution to the problem of our fallen-ness which just so happens to neatly avoid the fact that they have no evidence that would satisfy a rational being's desire for understanding.

Thanks guys. Hmmm, well, Hume wouldn't accept the faith answer to the problem of induction. And while some people may say that that's how they solve, it's not really a solution. You'll have the same floodgate problem there that I argue you have with religious faith.

Sometimes people seem to be suggesting that we all already have faith about things like induction, so it's ok for us to do about just any old thing. But I don't understand that at all.

Faith is different than the (arguably irrational) belief that the future will be like the past. Faith is justification-less belief. My belief that the sun will rise tomorrow morning is based on my experience that the sun rose this morning and every other morning of my life. While this is insufficient evidence to guarantee that the sun will rise tomorrow, my expectation/belief is based on the best data available (i.e. I am practically certain that the sun will rise tomorrow but there is no way that I can be definitely certain).

Defenders of religious faith often pull out arguments like these which English philosopher Stephen Law has described as "going nuclear": http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2010/09/revised-chapter-for-comments.html

Missionary, that's a great link to Law's post. I have people pull the nuclear move on me weekly. The idea seems to be that if it's true that we have faith about some other matter,then it's ok to have faith about anything and everything. Law really nails it here. Thanks.

Missionary, Hume's argument that we cannot know that the sun will rise tomorrow isn't that we can't be absolutely, or deductively certain about it. He argues, famously, that the claim that the world will behave in the future the same way it has in the past, particularly regarding causal laws, can't be justified at all. You can't defend it either deductively or inductively.

Here's a bit of a response I sent to Matt Howery about it:

R.M. Hare is one that I know of. His argument seems to be something like, well, we already take many other things, like future inductions, on faith. So it's ok to go ahead and do it about God too. He's wrong on both those counts.

A quick word about Hume's argument. Here it is super short:

1. If all knowledge is either a matter of fact or a relation between ideas, then we do not have knowledge that the future will resemble the past. 2. All knowledge is either a matter of fact or a relation between ideas.___________________________3. Therefore, we do not have knowledge that the future will resemble the past.

It's a perfectly legitimate answer to accept the first premise, but then insist on this second premise:

1. If all knowledge is either a matter of fact or a relation between ideas, then we do not have knowledge that the future will resemble the past. 2. But we do have knowledge that the future will resemble the past. _______________________3. Therefore, it is not the case that all knowledge is either a matter of fact or a relation between ideas.

That is, if Hume's method produces skepticism about causal laws, then perhaps it's the method that jacked up, not our knowledge of causal laws.

This is exactly Kant's answer, G.E. Moore's answer, Carnap's, Quine's, and many others. That's why I was so puzzled and resisted it when you tried to saddle me with the view that I believe in induction as a matter of faith.

Just pulled Hume's An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion off my unread bookshelf. Plan to start off with Simon Blackburn's How to Read Hume. Hopefully, all of this will disinfect my brain from my current read, Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity? D'Souza "goes nuclear" throughout the book and suggests that Hume's argument actually proves that miracles are possible. Of course, the trick is moving from "possible" to "likely".

I just noticed that the late Ken Pulliam ( blogger of "Why I De-Converted from Evangelical Christianity" and Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot interviewee) had this blog listed among those he read every day. That's quite the compliment.

Basing this comment solely on the presentation file you provided, I found two significant assumptions in your argument that could be very contentious.

(1) You take on the epistemic stance that faith fails to provide a basis for truth.

(2) You characterize (caricature?) the faithful as trying to exclusively identify "the one true God."

The reason (1) is contentious is because epistemology does not necessarily aim for truth, and there are a plethora of other desiderata we can consider. I have in mind here those scientific values that lead us to accept certain theories over others. Rarely does science aim to capture truth. Instead, the epistemic game we're playing is often to devise models that "save the phenomena" we observe, to be simple, coherent, be useful, etc. This is true whether we take an anti-realist stance like van Fraassen's (constructive empiricism) or any number of realist positions, old (positivists) or new (structuralist).

So if we abandon the notion that our epistemic models aim to capture truth, which is often the case, then the argument sustained by (1) is obliterated.

We have, then, to only ask: do the faithful aim to capture truth? I find that doubtful. The faithful desire things like living a moral life, making their actions coherent with the stories of their canon, or maintaining rituals to honor their beliefs (I speak here of any religion, not just Western or organized).

For (1) to be maintained, you need to qualify the severity of truth-seeking by the religious, and that their faithful epistemic mode is, actually, aiming for truth. Furthermore, you would need to qualify the significance of truth as an epistemic standard. Even amongst realists, where it would have the most significant support, I have rarely seen it advocated. (In fact, much that I have read on scientific realism, as I said, advocate other desiderata).

The problem with (2) is much more simple. Depending on (1), it is rather straight forward to see that the idea of "one true God" has no significance unless the believer is steadfast on truth-seeking. Here one needs to qualify the extent to which maintaining religious belief and religious epistemic standards demands that they uphold an exclusivist modality with respect to their beliefs. The evidence for this modality is actually the opposite. Here I am thinking of the Pew Forum reports, which their full reports indicate that believers tend to be inclusivist in their modality.

So your argument hinges on two very strict renderings of religious belief. The epistemic stricture is that we demand truth, and faith fails this desiderata. As such, religion is epistemically useless. The belief stricture is that to believe in God is to identify the "correct" or "true" God. Since there are an infinity of Gods to choose from, and we lack the epistemic measure to find the "true" path, the believer is lost.

Both of these positions fail as soon as you relax those assumptions in the slightest, and to maintain those positions demands great qualifications that I don't think you can maintain (the latter being countered by evidence, the former is philosophically lacking).

I offer an example from the philosophy of science. On slide 12 you ask, "how many ... hypotheses are out there for your consideration?" I left out the "supernatural" adjective because this question is maintained over any epistemic position, including science. By the standards you set with (1), even science fails to live up to par, because we do not weed out one hypothesis or theory from another because one is "more true" than another, whatever that would mean. Theory acceptance is a vast topic to which I have alluded in this comment, but it is well argued that it is both a pragmatic, value-laden practice amongst the scientific community, imbued with recognition of certain virtues, the least of which includes truth, if at all.

Basing this comment solely on the presentation file you provided, I found two significant assumptions in your argument that could be very contentious.

(1) You take on the epistemic stance that faith fails to provide a basis for truth.

(2) You characterize (caricature?) the faithful as trying to exclusively identify "the one true God."

The reason (1) is contentious is because epistemology does not necessarily aim for truth, and there are a plethora of other desiderata we can consider. I have in mind here those scientific values that lead us to accept certain theories over others. Rarely does science aim to capture truth. Instead, the epistemic game we're playing is often to devise models that "save the phenomena" we observe, to be simple, coherent, be useful, etc. This is true whether we take an anti-realist stance like van Fraassen's (constructive empiricism) or any number of realist positions, old (positivists) or new (structuralist).

So if we abandon the notion that our epistemic models aim to capture truth, which is often the case, then the argument sustained by (1) is obliterated.

We have, then, to only ask: do the faithful aim to capture truth? I find that doubtful. The faithful desire things like living a moral life, making their actions coherent with the stories of their canon, or maintaining rituals to honor their beliefs (I speak here of any religion, not just Western or organized).

For (1) to be maintained, you need to qualify the severity of truth-seeking by the religious, and that their faithful epistemic mode is, actually, aiming for truth. Furthermore, you would need to qualify the significance of truth as an epistemic standard. Even amongst realists, where it would have the most significant support, I have rarely seen it advocated. (In fact, much that I have read on scientific realism, as I said, advocate other desiderata).

The problem with (2) is much more simple. Depending on (1), it is rather straight forward to see that the idea of "one true God" has no significance unless the believer is steadfast on truth-seeking. Here one needs to qualify the extent to which maintaining religious belief and religious epistemic standards demands that they uphold an exclusivist modality with respect to their beliefs. The evidence for this modality is actually the opposite. Here I am thinking of the Pew Forum reports, which their full reports indicate that believers tend to be inclusivist in their modality.

So your argument hinges on two very strict renderings of religious belief. The epistemic stricture is that we demand truth, and faith fails this desiderata. As such, religious is epistemically useless. The belief stricture is that to believe in God is to identify the "correct" or "true" God. Since there are an infinity of Gods to choose from, and we lack the epistemic measure to find the "true" path, the believer is lost.

Both of these positions fail as soon as you relax those assumptions in the slightest, and to maintain those positions demands great qualifications that I don't think you can maintain (the latter being countered by evidence, the former is philosophically lacking).

I offer an example from the philosophy of science. On slide 12 you ask, "how many ... hypotheses are out there for your consideration?" I left out the "supernatural" adjective because this question is maintained over any epistemic position, including science. By the standards you set with (1), even science fails to live up to par, because we do not weed out one hypothesis or theory from another because one is "more true" than another, whatever that would mean. Theory acceptance is a vast topic to which I have alluded in this comment, but it is well argued that it is both a pragmatic, value-laden practice amongst the scientific community, imbued with recognition of certain virtues, the least of which includes truth, if at all.

Basing this comment solely on the presentation file you provided, I found two significant assumptions in your argument that could be very contentious.

(1) You take on the epistemic stance that faith fails to provide a basis for truth.

(2) You characterize (caricature?) the faithful as trying to exclusively identify "the one true God."

The reason (1) is contentious is because epistemology does not necessarily aim for truth, and there are a plethora of other desiderata we can consider. I have in mind here those scientific values that lead us to accept certain theories over others. Rarely does science aim to capture truth. Instead, the epistemic game we're playing is often to devise models that "save the phenomena" we observe, to be simple, coherent, be useful, etc. This is true whether we take an anti-realist stance like van Fraassen's (constructive empiricism) or any number of realist positions, old (positivists) or new (structuralist).

So if we abandon the notion that our epistemic models aim to capture truth, which is often the case, then the argument sustained by (1) is obliterated.

We have, then, to only ask: do the faithful aim to capture truth? I find that doubtful. The faithful desire things like living a moral life, making their actions coherent with the stories of their canon, or maintaining rituals to honor their beliefs (I speak here of any religion, not just Western or organized).

For (1) to be maintained, you need to qualify the severity of truth-seeking by the religious, and that their faithful epistemic mode is, actually, aiming for truth. Furthermore, you would need to qualify the significance of truth as an epistemic standard. Even amongst realists, where it would have the most significant support, I have rarely seen it advocated. (In fact, much that I have read on scientific realism, as I said, advocate other desiderata).

The problem with (2) is much more simple. Depending on (1), it is rather straight forward to see that the idea of "one true God" has no significance unless the believer is steadfast on truth-seeking. Here one needs to qualify the extent to which maintaining religious belief and religious epistemic standards demands that they uphold an exclusivist modality with respect to their beliefs. The evidence for this modality is actually the opposite. Here I am thinking of the Pew Forum reports, which their full reports indicate that believers tend to be inclusivist in their modality.

So your argument hinges on two very strict renderings of religious belief. The epistemic stricture is that we demand truth, and faith fails this desiderata. As such, religious is epistemically useless. The belief stricture is that to believe in God is to identify the "correct" or "true" God. Since there are an infinity of Gods to choose from, and we lack the epistemic measure to find the "true" path, the believer is lost.

Both of these positions fail as soon as you relax those assumptions in the slightest, and to maintain those positions demands great qualifications that I don't think you can maintain (the latter being countered by evidence, the former is philosophically lacking).

I offer an example from the philosophy of science. On slide 12 you ask, "how many ... hypotheses are out there for your consideration?" I left out the "supernatural" adjective because this question is maintained over any epistemic position, including science. By the standards you set with (1), even science fails to live up to par, because we do not weed out one hypothesis or theory from another because one is "more true" than another, whatever that would mean. Theory acceptance is a vast topic to which I have alluded in this comment, but it is well argued that it is both a pragmatic, value-laden practice amongst the scientific community, imbued with recognition of certain virtues, the least of which includes truth, if at all.

Wow, I had a hell of a time trying to submit my last (albeit, long) comment. I had to chop it in half and submit it in pieces lol

I wanted to add, if you would like me to substantiate my claims regarding theory acceptance, I can post a number of references later. I'm just killing time, and am too lazy now. It's 2 in the morning after all!

Thanks for the input Brian. Lots of interesting ideas here. Here's the short answer: there are literally tens of millions of people who are taking the view that I am criticizing here that, 1. their faith allows them to apprehend the truth that God is real, and 2) there is one true God, the Christian God, who their faith gives them access to. In order to sustain the sorts of criticisms you're bringing up, one would have to abandon the position I'm objecting to. Faith as it is practiced in the vast majority of cases I've seen presumes a simple minded brand of correspondence theory about truth that suffers from the anti-realist objections you're bringing up. That's not my mistake, it's theirs. So you and I are in agreement about a lot of this. Furthermore, if someone claims to have faith in God, but he lays aside all claim to "God exists is true" through that faith, then I see what they are saying as either incoherent or irrelevant. If their faith is solely a matter of comfort, usefulness, or emotional fulfillment, then I have different objections. The problem, of course, is that the faithful rarely or never make this separation as carefully as you are. What starts with an emotional or pragmatic justification slips over to talk about what is true. Part of the problem is that you can't really work out a coherent account of belief that doesn't build in truth. If believing p doesn't include thinking that p is true, I don't know what belief is at all.

Some of your points about anti-realism are correct. But even if we accept the Van Fraassen style argument that the acceptance of a whole theory ultimately rests upon a wide range of values and utility, no one thinks that that puts a faith model of the world and the scientific model of the world on the same par. With regard to the "eliminating all of the alternative hypotheses" point, science has the crucial virtue that faith lacks. In science we actively seek out disconfirming evidence and corroborate theories on its basis. With faith, there is no means for judging between competing or conflicting world models. Personal prejudice becomes the only measure of model acceptability. The other difference between anti-realist and faith models of reality is that the former rejects "it gives me the warm fuzzies" as a criteria for model acceptability.

Thanks for your thoughtful input, Bryan. Lots of interesting ideas here. If I can summarize, your objections seem to be that my attacks on faith are weak because they make mistaken non-anti realist presumptions about truth and scientific theories. The assumptions in question: 1. Faith provides a basis for truth, and 2. faith gives us access to the one true God. But these aren't my assumptions to defend. There are literally tens of millions of faithful believers who have these views. I'm objecting to their position. If anti-realism further undermines their argument, then so much the better. I have another response on my other computer that will elaborate if I can navigate around some technological problems I'm having.

The short answer is that if adopt anti-realism, and I agree that we should, then faith really goes down in flames.

What I said was far from a purely anti-realist position (though, I ascribe to it). If the realist is committed to there being a "one true reality" to which everything corresponds, then any theory about that reality has to be accepted in full. Yet, scientific theories are full of things that are entirely unrealistic (infinite wave fronts, e.g.) or were produced entirely for ad hoc reasons (See, R. Giere. 2005. Scientific Realism: Old and New Problems. Erkenntnis, e.g.)

I don't doubt there is a large number of people that subscribe to the sort of beliefs to which your criticisms can be weighed, but that is like saying "here's a criticism, now let's see to whom it applies." You speak broadly of all the faithful, but that group is far from homogeneous. One way to consider this more "realist" interpretation of faith, I suggested the Pew Forum report:

In it, they break down the interpretation of scripture, which I think makes for a good representation if this issue. If you compare the proportion of each of the affiliates and the extent to which "literal word of God" is weighed against the composite alternatives, the fact is that the majority of religious people do not seem to accept the sort of "one true God" interpretation of their religious beliefs, as presented by their holy scripture. So when you talk about the "vast majority" you are simply wrong. There is no evidence for this vast majority, and statistics like these (though, being a statistician, I have complaints) suggest exactly the opposite conclusion.

But to return to the metaphysical issue, you are right to point out there are stark differences between faith and science. My critique was not to say they are in any significant way homogeneous with each other. The point was that on the front you present, they are on the same footing. Where they differ, as you point out, is in their methodology. But methodological merits of science are another matter from the metaphysical here. Of course science offers methods to evaluate and refine their theories. Religion is largely hermeneutical.

Whether we adopt an antirealist or realist position, the idea that we accept beliefs because they are true just isn't so. It isn't true of everyday reasoning (we accept what we observe given the regularity of our experiences and background knowledge). It isn't true of formal reasoning as present in the sciences, on either interpretation. The scientific realist is committed to the idea that their methods and values they weigh in their modeling will somehow converge on truth, will "divide nature at the joints," but what you suggest is to put the cart before the horse. This is far from an anti-realist critique. Popper, Lakatos and Kuhn all recognized it. There is a wealth of views on values in science that contend that view, such as perspectival objectivity (which I found out last night that Giere has written much on). Laudan ("Beyond Positivism and Relativism") also contends with the idea of "truth first" as you appear to argue. Furthermore, we can take the structuralist issues involving the pessimistic metainduction and the responses of people like Worrall, Ladyman and all the rest in that field of study (to which van Fraassen belongs).

What I said was far from a purely anti-realist position (though, I ascribe to it). If the realist is committed to there being a "one true reality" to which everything corresponds, then any theory about that reality has to be accepted in full. Yet, scientific theories are full of things that are entirely unrealistic (infinite wave fronts, e.g.) or were produced entirely for ad hoc reasons (See, R. Giere. 2005. Scientific Realism: Old and New Problems. Erkenntnis, e.g.)

I don't doubt there is a large number of people that subscribe to the sort of beliefs to which your criticisms can be weighed, but that is like saying "here's a criticism, now let's see to whom it applies." You speak broadly of all the faithful, but that group is far from homogeneous. One way to consider this more "realist" interpretation of faith, I suggested the Pew Forum report:

In it, they break down the interpretation of scripture, which I think makes for a good representation if this issue. If you compare the proportion of each of the affiliates and the extent to which "literal word of God" is weighed against the composite alternatives, the fact is that the majority of religious people do not seem to accept the sort of "one true God" interpretation of their religious beliefs, as presented by their holy scripture. So when you talk about the "vast majority" you are simply wrong. There is no evidence for this vast majority, and statistics like these (though, being a statistician, I have complaints) suggest exactly the opposite conclusion.

But to return to the metaphysical issue, you are right to point out there are stark differences between faith and science. My critique was not to say they are in any significant way homogeneous with each other. The point was that on the front you present, they are on the same footing. Where they differ, as you point out, is in their methodology. But methodological merits of science are another matter from the metaphysical here. Of course science offers methods to evaluate and refine their theories. Religion is largely hermeneutical.

Whether we adopt an antirealist or realist position, the idea that we accept beliefs because they are true just isn't so. It isn't true of everyday reasoning (we accept what we observe given the regularity of our experiences and background knowledge). It isn't true of formal reasoning as present in the sciences, on either interpretation.

The scientific realist is committed to the idea that their methods and values they weigh in their modeling will somehow converge on truth, will "divide nature at the joints," but what you suggest is to put the cart before the horse. This is far from an anti-realist critique. Popper, Lakatos and Kuhn all recognized it. There is a wealth of views on values in science that contend that view, such as perspectival objectivity (which I found out last night that Giere has written much on). Laudan ("Beyond Positivism and Relativism") also contends with the idea of "truth first" as you appear to argue. Furthermore, we can take the structuralist issues involving the pessimistic metainduction and the responses of people like Worrall, Ladyman and all the rest in that field of study (to which van Fraassen belongs).

The point I was trying to make was not that antirealism can be weighed in, but that even the realist in contrast to the antirealist is not committed to this idea of truth as the primary measure of epistemic merit.

I do not deny that belief in P may also compel the person to say "P is true." Here I think the van Fraassen's antirealist response is appropriate. We perceive our models to be true representations to speak of them meaningfully, but that in no way requires a commitment to their actually being real or true. All we require is empirical adequacy. Even the realist responses to which I alluded accept this on some level, but their arguments for truth in science go beyond mere theory acceptance. They argue for things like truth in convergence, theory progression or maturation of research programs. Truth is achieved at a higher level, and the same can be said about beliefs. We don't accept beliefs to be true, but we want our web of beliefs to be true in some sense. One can hold false beliefs and still have a coherent body of knowledge.

Oh, but a final rejoinder: I don't think our metaphysical (realist vs antirealist) commitments matter. In fact, I think faith can find a better home in an antirealist position because there is more real estate for false beliefs that can be instrumental for accurate observations (a position others have, and I could, argue that the social sciences maintained for a long time, and somewhat even now).

Where faith goes down in flames is entirely within methodological concerns. Science is meritorious precisely for this reason. Faith is methodologically impotent.

Thanks again Bryan for all the thoughtful input. I confess there are too many puzzling claims in your comments that I don't even understand well enough to respond to. My view is that there are a number of serious problems with attempts to defend believing that God exists with appeals to faith. The view is obviously widespread, or perhaps it is only the hundreds of people that I lecture and correspond with that hold it. One thing you seem to be suggesting is that there aren't very many people who hold the view and you point to a PEW study about American's attitudes towards the literal truth of the Bible as evidence. I am at a total loss to see how various attitudes about the Bible shows that it is not a widespread view that there is one God that exists. There are over 100 million people in this country identifying themselves as evangelical and who subscribe to the view that the Christian God is real. A great many of them appeal to faith to vindicate this belief. I've argued, not unreasonably, that they are mistaken. Your view seems to be that those believers and I do not understand some sophisticated notions of justification, truth, and theory that are part of the modern debate about realism and anti-realism in phil. of science. You're right at least that I don't understand the position you're defending. And I still don't see how those points vindicate faith at all. Is faith or is it not an epistemically culpable ground for believing that God is real?

"I don't doubt there is a large number of people that subscribe to the sort of beliefs to which your criticisms can be weighed, but that is like saying "here's a criticism, now let's see to whom it applies." You speak broadly of all the faithful, but that group is far from homogeneous. One way to consider this more "realist" interpretation of faith, I suggested the Pew Forum report:"

Wow, evidently I have a lot of reading to do. I wanted to respond to this claim about the non-homogeneity of religious faith. I have to propose that the apparent non-homogeneity of the religious in the statistics is not due to a wide variety of concepts of faith, but due to how the single, meaningless concept utterly breaks down under the slightest scrutiny/questioning.

The only other point I wanted to bring up is, it seems like Bryan is trying to change the game a little bit. I have to admit to being not completely familiar with what he is proposing, but it seems to want to, at some level, change the claims that religious people are making. While that seems perfectly reasonable in discussing concepts of realism/anti-realism, it seems arrogant to project any concept/meaning other than what is stated by them.

The structure of Dr. McCormicks's argument is directly responding to the most common religious claims on faith. There are (obviously) many discussions to be had between philosophers on the concepts presented (I am not one), but there is something fundamentally arrogant I think with projecting a different, or perhaps, more philosophically sophisticated concept onto what a believer will say.

Again, I have lots of homework to do on the subject, but I look forward to diving headfirst into some realism/anti-realism material. Thank you, by the way, for posting the authors in your posts. It's appreciated!

The point of bringing up that page of the report was because the reliance on the scripture being the word of God (and therefore evidence), is that the majority of faithful do not rely on that sort of interpretation. We can also look at page 4. These results state specifically that people are not dogmatic about their faith: they are not exclusivists. If they are not exclusivists, then they accept their beliefs without conflict to alternatives.

But how can someone believe that P while also accepting that it could be the case that P is false? This isn't the same as "well, we're just waiting for more evidence to confirm or disconfirm my belief" for, say, some inductive uncertainty.

This is the same position even the scientific realist accepts. I used the example of the pessimistic metainduction. If we take our best theories to be true about the world (e.g., Fresnal's mechanical theory of light), and it is later rejected as being untrue when accepting the "now true" theory (e.g., Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light), should we take it that scientific theories are epistemically culpable?

We believe/accept scientific theories knowing they can very well be unrealistic and that someone can just as well accept a theory, contrary to ours, without any conflict. It only becomes a problem if we think our theories are committed to being true.

So you ask, is faith an epistemically culpable ground for believing that God is real? Sure. But that is because you're insisting that the religious are faithful for that end. If we view science as aiming for truth, then science is on epistemically culpable grounds for believing that the content of their theories is true. Science does not aim for truth, and neither does religious belief.

The faithful believe that God is real. This much is true. But faith does not and is not vindicated as the measure of the truth of God's reality. If it were, then we would expect to see much more dogma than the evidence displays. Do you not agree? You argued as much in your presentation!

This issue is ultimately epistemic. You claim "the grounds for recommending belief are that it is true." I disagree, and by loosening this requirement, your criticisms fall apart. I am not making any positive claims apologizing for faith, so your question to me was pointless. I am, as I said from the start, only critiquing your argument.

The point of bringing up that page of the report was because the reliance on the scripture being the word of God (and therefore can be used as evidence), is that the majority of faithful do not rely on that sort of interpretation. We can also look at page 4. These results state specifically that people are not dogmatic about their faith: they are not exclusivists. If they are not exclusivists, then they are accepting their belief without conflict to others accepting alternatives.

But how can someone believe that P while also accepting that it could be the case that P is false? This isn't the same as "well, we're just waiting for more evidence to confirm or disconfirm my belief" for, say, some inductive uncertainty.

This is the same position even the scientific realists accepts. I used the example of the pessimistic metainduction. If we take our best theories to be true about the world (e.g., Fresnal's mechanical theory of light), and it is later rejected as being untrue when accepting the "now true" theory (e.g., Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light), then should we take it that scientific theories are epistemically culpable?

We believe/accept scientific theories knowing they can very well be unrealistic and that someone can just as well accept a theory, contrary to ours, without any conflict. It only becomes a problem if we think theory acceptance commits us to the theory being true.

So you ask, is faith an epistemically culpable ground for believing that God is real? Sure. But that is because you're insisting that the religious are faithful for that end. If we view science as aiming for truth, then science is anepistemically culpable grounds for believing that the content of their theories is true. Science does not aim for truth, and neither does religious belief. This analogy is to demonstrate the absurdity.

The faithful believe that God is real. This much is true. But faith does not and is not vindicated as the measure of the truth of God's reality. If it were, then we would expect to see much more dogma than the evidence displays. Do you not agree? You argued as much in your presentation!

This issue is ultimately epistemic. You claim "the grounds for recommending belief are that it is true." I disagree, and by loosening this requirement, your criticisms fall apart. I am not making any positive claims apologizing for faith; so your question to me was pointless. I am, as I said from the start, only critiquing your argument.

If you were thanking me for the references I made, I should forewarn that you may want more detail. I have a Zotero library full of references from the past few years of research. If you desire, I can email you more specific references to the realists-antirealist debates.

As for my criticism, I am not attempting to respond for the believer at all. The believer claims that they accept a religious belief on faith. McCormick is correct that faith is justification-less. The point is that he is wrong in claiming belief acceptance requires truth-acceptance.

We generally think of rational acceptance to be justified by some truth-preserving argument, like in logic. A set of premises P logically (or statistically) entail some conclusion Q. Our acceptance of P guarantees a rational acceptance of Q.

But to apply this mode of rationality to anything empirical utterly fails, and this was borne out when positivism went out of style over the past century.

It would belabor the point to talk about all the alternatives and details of moving beyond positivism. Nowadays the very idea of objectivity comes into question.

What is important to notice is that belief acceptance in no way commits us to truth preservation (and I'm staying away from the discussion of what truth even is!). McCormick's argument, however, states clearly that belief acceptance is truth-preserving. It is the basis for his criticisms toward the end of his presentation. Otherwise, the fact that there are thousands of possible "God hypotheses" floating around would be a nonissue. But the argument is that it is an issue, because without justification, without truth preservation, the idea that faith determines belief is culpable.

To be apologetic for faith for a moment, I would simply say that faith is scarcely used alone. Faith alone is an epistemically culpable position. Religious people have reasons for their beliefs, but they do not have truth-preserving reasons, and therefore with lack of evidence they rely on faithful acceptance like one accepts a moral imperative for no other objective reason.

Well this comment really opened my eyes. I mean, this is powerful stuff. After all, we are all atheists towards Thor, right? Some people are just enlightened enough to take it one step further. And we all know Darwin has already explained how the entire universe can function without any need for a creator. Except, well … the Kalaam Cosmological Argument, teleological argument, First Cause / Unmoved Mover, the impossibility of infinite causal regress, the necessity of at least one unconditioned reality, the Argument from Reason, Fine Tuning of Universal Constants, irreducible biological complexity, the argument from morality, Plantina's modal ontological argument, the free will defense to the problem of evil. ... Your entire world view lies shattered at your feet. If you truly honor the gods of reason and critical thinking half as much as you claim, you would plant your face firmly into your hand, step away from the device, find a quiet place, and rethink your life. Otherwise, thanks for this steaming nugget of regurgitated, pseudo-intellectual blather, you Hitchens-Dawkins parroting, basement dwelling, faux-analytical, GNU-Reditt obsessed clown.

You have, inadvertently, given me the empirical evidence I have been looking for to support my new proof for the existence of God: the argument from douche.P1: if a maximally douchy entity exists, there must some transendant, countervailing entity which embodies all that which in not douchy. Otherwise, douchiness would have overwhelmed the universe. P2: non-douchy things exist, such as Jesus, America, freedom, baseball, Ronald Reagan, etc.P3: a maximally douchy entity exists (proven by your last comment ).P4: maximal douchiness does not dominate the universe based on the existence of P2 + sunsets, babies, Chuck Norris, etc.P5: the transendant embodiment of maximal non-douchiness, which allows for existence of P2, must be spacess, timeless, immaterial, omnipotent, in order to overcome the maximal douchiness of P3.That entity is what classical theists call God.Thanks again neck beard boy. In all your pseudo-intellectual, teenage angst ridden butthurt fury, you have proven the existence of God!

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Atheism

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Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rochester. Teaching at CSUS since 1996. My main area of research and publication now is atheism and philosophy of religion. I am also interested in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and rational decision theory/critical thinking.

Quotes:

"Science. It works, bitches."

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever until the end of time. But he loves you! He loves you and he needs money!"George Carlin 1937 - 2008

Many Paths, No God.

I don't go to church, I AM a church, for fuck's sake. I'm MINISTRY. --Al Jourgensen

Every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out, “It is a matter of faith, and above reason.”- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

If life evolved, then there isn't anything left for God to do.

The universe is not fine-tuned for humanity. Humanity is fine-tuned to the universe. Victor Stenger

Skeptical theists choose to ride the trolley car of skepticism concerning the goods that God would know so as to undercut the evidential argument from evil. But once on that trolley car it may not be easy to prevent that skepticism from also undercutting any reasons they may suppose they have for thinking that God will provide them and the worshipful faithful with life everlasting in his presence. William Rowe

Unless you're one of those Easter-bunny vitalists who believes that personality results from some unquantifiable divine spark, there's really no alternative to the mechanistic view of human nature. Peter Watts

The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. E.O. Wilson

Creating humans who could understand the contrast between good and evil without subjecting them to eons of horrible suffering would be an utterly inconsequential matter for an omnipotent being. MM

The second commandment is "Thou shall not construct any graven images." Is this really the pinnacle of what we can achieve morally? The second most important moral principle for all the generations of humanity? It would be so easy to improve upon the 10 Commandments. How about "Try not to deep fry all of your food"? Sam Harris

Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody--not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms--had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would think--though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one--that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great

We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true--that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great

If atheism is a religion, then not playing chess is a hobby.

"Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything--anything--be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in." Sam Harris, The End of Faith, 36.

"Only a tiny fraction of corpsesfossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water." Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 127.

One cannot take, "believing in X gives me hope, makes me moral, or gives me comfort," to be a reason for believing X. It might make me moral if I believe that I will be shot the moment I do something immoral, but that doesn't make it possible for me to believe it, or to take its effects on me as reasons for thinking it is true. Matt McCormick

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Top Ten Myths about Belief in God

1. Myth: Without God, life has no meaning.

There are 1.2 billion Chinese who have no predominant religion, and 1 billion people in India who are predominantly Hindu. And 65% of Japan's 127 million people claim to be non-believers. It is laughable to suggest that none of these billions of people are leading meaningful lives.

2. Myth: Prayer works.

Numerous studies have now shown that remote, blind, inter-cessionary prayer has no effect whatsoever of the health or well-being of subject's health, psychological states, or longevity. Furthermore, we have no evidence to support the view that people who wish fervently in their heads for things that they want get those things at any higher rate than people who do not.

3. Myth: Atheists are less decent, less moral, and overall worse people than believers.

There are hundreds of millions of non-believers on the planet living normal, decent, moral lives. They love their children, care about others, obey laws, and try to keep from doing harm to others just like everyone else. In fact, in predominately non-believing countries such as in northern Europe, measures of societal health such as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, per capita income, education, homicide, suicide, gender equality, and political coercion are better than they are in believing societies.

4. Myth: Belief in God is compatible with the descriptions, explanations and products of science.

In the past, every supernatural or paranormal explanation of phenomena that humans believed turned out to be mistaken; science has always found a physical explanation that revealed that the supernatural view was a myth. Modern organisms evolved from lower life forms, they weren't created 6,000 years ago in the finished state. Fever is not caused by demon possession. Bad weather is not the wrath of angry gods. Miracle claims have turned out to be mistakes, frauds, or deceptions. So we have every reason to conclude that science will continue to undermine the superstitious worldview of religion.

5. Myth: We have immortal souls that survive the death of the body.

We have mountains of evidence that makes it clear that our consciousness, our beliefs, our desires, our thoughts all depend upon the proper functioning of our brains our nervous systems to exist. So when the brain dies, all of these things that we identify with the soul also cease to exist. Despite the fact that billions of people have lived and died on this planet, we do not have a single credible case of someone's soul, or consciousness, or personality continuing to exist despite the demise of their bodies. Allegations of spirit chandlers, psychics, ghost stories, and communications with the dead have all turned out to be frauds, deceptions, mistakes, and lies.

6. Myth: If there is no God, everything is permitted. Only belief in God makes people moral.

Consider the billions of people in China, India, and Japan above. If this claim was true, none of them would be decent moral people. So Ghandi, the Buddha, and Confucius, to name only a few were not moral people on this view, not to mention these other famous atheists: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Elizabeth Cady-Stanton, John Stuart Mill, Galileo, George Bernard Shaw, Gloria Steinam, James Madison, John Adams, and so on.

7. Myth: Believing in God is never a root cause of significant evil.

The counter examples of cases where it was someone's belief in God that was the direct justification for their perpetrated horrendous evils on humankind are too numerous to mention.

8. Myth: The existence of God would explain the origins of the universe and humanity.

All of the questions that allegedly plague non-God attempts to explain our origins--why are we here, where are we going, what is the point of it all, why is the universe here--still apply to the faux explanation of God. The suggestion that God created everything does not make it any clearer to us where it all came from, how he created it, why he created it, where it isall going. In fact, it raises even more difficult mysteries: how did God, operating outside the confines of space, time, and natural law "create" or "build" a universe that has physical laws? We have no precedent and maybe no hope of answering or understanding such a possibility. What does it mean to say that some disembodied, spiritual being who knows everything and has all power, "loves" us, or has thoughts, or goals, or plans? How could such a being have any sort of personal relationship with beings like us?

9. Myth: Even if it isn't true, there's no harm in my believing in God anyway.

People's religious views inform their voting, how they raise their children, what they think is moral and immoral, what laws and legislation they pass, who they are friends and enemies with, what companies they invest in, where they donate to charities, who they approve and disapprove of, who they are willing to kill or tolerate, what crimes they are willing to commit, and which wars they are willing to fight. How could any reasonable person think that religious beliefs are insignificant.

10: Myth: There is a God.

Common Criticisms of Atheism (and Why They’re Mistaken)

1. You can’t prove atheism.You can never prove a negative, so atheism requires as much faith as religion.

Atheists are frequently accosted with this accusation, suggesting that in order for non-belief to be reasonable, it must be founded on deductively certain grounds. Many atheists within the deductive atheology tradition have presented just those sorts of arguments, but those arguments are often ignored. But more importantly, the critic has invoked a standard of justification that almost none of our beliefs meet. If we demand that beliefs are not justified unless we have deductive proof, then all of us will have to throw out the vast majority of things we currently believe—oxygen exists, the Earth orbits the Sun, viruses cause disease, the 2008 summer Olympics were in China, and so on. The believer has invoked one set of abnormally stringent standards for the atheist while helping himself to countless beliefs of his own that cannot satisfy those standards. Deductive certainty is not required to draw a reasonable conclusion that a claim is true.

As for requiring faith, is the objection that no matter what, all positions require faith?Would that imply that one is free to just adopt any view they like?Religiousness and non-belief are on the same footing?(they aren’t).If so, then the believer can hardly criticize the non-believer for not believing. Is the objection that one should never believe anything on the basis of faith?Faith is a bad thing?That would be a surprising position for the believer to take, and, ironically, the atheist is in complete agreement.

2. The evidence shows that we should believe.

If in fact there is sufficient evidence to indicate that God exists, then a reasonable person should believe it. Surprisingly, very few people pursue this line as a criticism of atheism. But recently, modern versions of the design and cosmological arguments have been presented by believers that require serious consideration. Many atheists cite a range of reasons why they do not believe that these arguments are successful. If an atheist has reflected carefully on the best evidence presented for God’s existence and finds that evidence insufficient, then it’s implausible to fault them for irrationality, epistemic irresponsibility, or for being obviously mistaken.Given that atheists are so widely criticized, and that religious belief is so common and encouraged uncritically, the chances are good that any given atheist has reflected more carefully about the evidence.

3. You should have faith.

Appeals to faith also should not be construed as having prescriptive force the way appeals to evidence or arguments do. The general view is that when a person grasps that an argument is sound, that imposes an epistemic obligation of sorts on her to accept the conclusion. One person’s faith that God exists does not have this sort of inter-subjective implication. Failing to believe what is clearly supported by the evidence is ordinarily irrational. Failure to have faith that some claim is true is not similarly culpable. At the very least, having faith, where that means believing despite a lack of evidence or despite contrary evidence is highly suspect. Having faith is the questionable practice, not failing to have it.

4. Atheism is bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing.

These accusations have been dealt with countless times. But let’s suppose that they are correct. Would they be reasons to reject the truth of atheism? They might be unpleasant affects, but having negative emotions about a claim doesn’t provide us with any evidence that it is false. Imagine upon hearing news about the Americans dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki someone steadfastly refused to believe it because it was bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing. Suppose we refused to believe that there is an AIDS epidemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people in Africa on the same grounds.

5.Atheism is bad for you.Some studies in recent years have suggested that people who regularly attend church, pray, and participate in religious activities are happier, live longer, have better health, and less depression.

First, these results and the methodologies that produced them have been thoroughly criticized by experts in the field.Second, it would be foolish to conclude that even if these claims about quality of life were true, that somehow shows that there is theism is correct and atheism is mistaken.What would follow, perhaps, is that participating in social events like those in religious practices are good for you, nothing more.There are a number of obvious natural explanations.Third, it is difficult to know the direction of the causal arrow in these cases.Does being religious result in these positive effects, or are people who are happier, healthier, and not depressed more inclined to participate in religions for some other reasons?Fourth, in a number of studies atheistic societies like those in northern Europe scored higher on a wide range of society health measures than religious societies.

Given that atheists make up a tiny proportion of the world’s population, and that religious governments and ideals have held sway globally for thousands of years, believers will certainly lose in a contest over “who has done more harm,” or “which ideology has caused more human suffering.”It has not been atheism because atheists have been widely persecuted, tortured, and killed for centuries nearly to the point of extinction.

Sam Harris has argued that the problem with these regimes has been that they became too much like religions.“Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag, and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”

7.Atheists are harsh, intolerant, and hateful of religion.

Sam Harris has advocated something he calls “conversational intolerance.”For too long, a confusion about religious tolerance has led people to look the other way and say nothing while people with dangerous religious agendas have undermined science, the public good, and the progress of the human race.There is no doubt that people are entitled to read what they choose, write and speak freely, and pursue the religions of their choice.But that entitlement does not guarantee that the rest of us must remain silent or not verbally criticize or object to their ideas and their practices, especially when they affect all of us.Religious beliefs have a direct affect on who a person votes for, what wars they fight, who they elect to the school board, what laws they pass, who they drop bombs on, what research they fund (and don’t), which social programs they fund (and don’t), and a long list of other vital, public matters.Atheists are under no obligation to remain silent about those beliefs and practices that urgently need to be brought into the light and reasonably evaluated.

Real respect for humanity will not be found by indulging your neighbor’s foolishness, or overlooking dangerous mistakes.Real respect is found in disagreement.The most important thing we can do for each other is disagree vigorously and thoughtfully so that we can all get closer to the truth.

8.Science is as much a religious ideology as religion is.

At their cores, religions and science have a profound difference.The essence of religion is sustaining belief in the face of doubts, obeying authority, and conforming to a fixed set of doctrines.By contrast, the most important discovery that humans have ever made is the scientific method.The essence of that method is diametrically opposed to religious ideals:actively seek out disconfirming evidence.The cardinal virtues of the scientific approach are to doubt, analyze, critique, be skeptical, and always be prepared to draw a different conclusion if the evidence demands it.